News, Announcements & Writings

All Kehilla members are welcome to join us for our customary meetings on the second Monday of the month at 7pm in the Fireside Room.

Monday, May 9, 7pm:

The Two Hotel Francforts: A Novel by David Leavitt

It is the summer of 1940, and Lisbon, Portugal, is the only neutral port left in Europe―a city filled with spies, crowned heads, and refugees of every nationality, tipping back absinthe to while away the time until their escape. Awaiting safe passage to New York on the SS Manhattan, two couples meet: Pete and Julia Winters, expatriate Americans fleeing their sedate life in Paris; and Edward and Iris Freleng, sophisticated, independently wealthy, bohemian, and beset by the social and sexual anxieties of their class. As Portugal’s neutrality, and the world’s future, hang in the balance, the hidden threads in the lives of these four characters―Julia’s status as a Jew, Pete and Edward’s improbable affair, Iris’s increasingly desperate efforts to save her tenuous marriage―begin to come loose.

Monday, June 13, 7pm

The December Project : An extraordinary rabbi and a skeptical seeker confront life’s greatest mystery by Sara Davidson

In the tradition of Tuesdays with Morrie and The Last Lecture, New York Times bestselling author Sara Davidson met every Friday with 89-year-old Rabbi Zalman Shachter-Shalomi, to discuss what he calls The December Project. “When you can feel in your cells that you’re coming to the end of your tour of duty,” he said, “what is the spiritual work of this time, and how do we prepare for the mystery?” For two years, they met every week, and this is Davidson’s memoir of what they learned and how they changed. Interspersed with their talks are sketches from Reb Zalman’s extraordinary life.

For more information, please contact Jan at jankherzog@gmail.com. Neither of these books are from the Jewish Library so please look in the library or obtain from your independent book store.